In the Trunk
by Smileyfax
Summary: On the night Charles Ruttheimer the Third graduates from high school, he makes a horrific discovery in his trunk, and goes to extreme lengths to get rid of it.
1. Chapter 1

Upchuck sat on the trunk of his car. It was not quite six PM on the day he had graduated high school. The sun hung low in the sky, and a breeze which still thought it was spring caused the hairs on his arms to prickle with its coolness.

He wasn't even twelve hours out of school, and Daria Morgendorffer lay dead in his trunk.

The past few hours were a blank to him. All he knew was that, sometime between accepting his diploma and his coming to, he and his car had ended up on the far side of town, and the delightfully droll Daria was deceased.

"...charles..."

He jerked his head back and forth, looking for who had spoken the unfamiliar name, but there was nobody around. He wondered what he should do.

Turning himself in to the police was not an option. After all, he may not have actually killed Daria. Anything could have happened during that blackout. And, as he was not the type to normally murder his classmates (beloveds), then clearly he was not morally, ethically, or legally culpable for his actions while unconscious. (This conveniently ignored the possibility that Upchuck could experience another blackout and wind up with another body in his trunk).

Okay, that left hiding the body somewhere, and hoping to God it all blew over before he left town for university. He considered his current location, High Hills Park, for all of fifteen seconds before discarding it. It was used frequently by a lot of people, and somebody would surely notice a fresh grave. Even the rumored Satanists would probably call the cops with such a discovery; Upchuck had actually spied on them once, and found the only animal they sacrificed was a chicken, and it had probably run them about four dollars at the local deli.

He considered the quarry: It was remote, it was mostly abandoned...in fact, the only use anybody got out of it nowadays was as an expermentation grounds for teenage forays into the worlds of sex and drugs.

The scratching noise coming from inside the trunk threw him off his track of thought. He also twitched so hard he landed face-first in the grass.

He scrambled for the keys in his pocket, scratching the paint around the keyhole as he desperately thrust, finally unlocking it a good minute after the sound startled him.

Daria was as still as she had been the first time he had popped the trunk, half an hour ago.

He took one wrist to check for a pulse, but it was still as cool and stiff as it was half an hour ago.

His eyes wandered to the black skirt she always wore. His imagination wandered...had he gone exploring during his blackout? He began to reach a hand out...he shook himself out of the daydream and slammed the lid shut on the trunk. He looked at the scratched paint, a little irritated that he'd damaged his beauty, then slammed his fists down onto the trunk. "Focus, goddamnit!" he shouted to himself. "Scratched paint is not high on your list of goddamn priorities! So leave it, Chucky!"

As he moved around the car, opened the driver's side door, and slipped behind the wheel, the plan finally solidified itself in his mind: he would first purchase a shovel, then drive to the quarry, bury the murdered Miss Morgendorffer, and then drive home and not leave his room until August, when he would be heading halfway across the country to start university.

Christ, he hoped he could make it that long without cracking.

XXXXXXXXXX

Normally, I'm not too fond of the 'Upchuck is a deranged lunatic' trope, but when the idea for this story popped into my head, I rather loved it. I can't wait to write out Upchuck's night; I'll be aiming for 'very surreal'. 


	2. Chapter 2

A shiver ran up Upchuck's spine as he passed through the automatic doors of the Pay Day warehouse store, and for a moment he thought that Daria's ghost had come to take him to hell, but then he realized it was just a consequence of the store managers keeping the building's temperature at 60 degrees, no matter the time of year. Steeling himself, he advanced inward.

And promptly got lost.

Over the past two years since the store's construction, the Ruttheimer scion had not seen fit to peruse its wares - it was barely a step up from a supermarket, and his tastes were a little more refined than that. Still, though, it did have some interesting products stocked on its shelves...

He shook his head and turned away from the cans of ravioli which were the size of his head. He could eat later; burying the corpse of one of the most alluring women he had ever known would come first.

"...how sweet..."

Once again, he looked all around for the source of the voice, but he was alone in the aisle. He hastened his pace, and soon enough saw an employee with her back turned to him. He approached her to ask about the whereabouts of their shovels.

"Excuse me, where might I find your - oh!" He was distracted from his question when he realized the woman was Andrea, one of his fellow graduates. "What are you doing here?" he stupidly asked.

She sneered at him. "Gee, I'm wearing a Pay Day visor, apron, and name tag, so I must be fuckin' shopping!"

"Right, right, sorry. I'll, uh, just leave you alone, then." He was now too nervous having met somebody he knew, so he attempted to back away as quickly as he could without arousing suspicion.

He was unsuccessful. "Hey, isn't this the part where you hit on me?" she asked. "Did your dick fall off when you got your diploma or something?"

"Um, no," Upchuck shook his head. "I just...this hasn't been a good graduation day," he admitted.

"Fuckin' tell me about it. After I got my diploma, my parents started naggin' me about college and shit. They still want me to go to state university. Fuck that, I got accepted by three of the places I applied to in Europe, I'm gettin' the fuck outta this country."

Upchuck's eyebrows raised in surprise. He hadn't even considered where his peers would be continuing their educations, nevermind where. "Congratulations! I'll be attending a university up in New England - the same one my father and grandfather went to, actually."

There was a lull.

"Well, it was nice talking to you..." Upchuck again tried to slink away from the conversation.

Andrea grabbed him by the arm. Hard. "I still don't get why you haven't hit on me yet." It was a valid question; after all, he had spent practically his entire high school career attempting to seduce virtually every female in his age group. He remembered even hitting on Andrea once before, at the school-sponsored renaissance festival.

"Um, well, I'm just in a hurry, and -"

"Bullshit." Upchuck gulped. "In the past four years, you never once passed up an opportunity to hit on someone, no matter how much of an inconvenience to you. Hell, I've seen you almost get your ass kicked by Barch or Kevin Thompson more than once. I almost thought you would bust out the same shit just now, calling me your dark-eyed mistress of pain or some dumbass thing like that. What's your game?"

Upchuck was now actually quivering in fear. "No...there's no game, I swear!" he swore.

She stared at him for a moment, her face unreadable. "My shift ends in fifteen minutes. I need you to give me a ride."

Upchuck blinked in confusion. "Um. Sure. Where do you want me to drive you?"

"Oh, you have your car? I guess you can give me a lift after."

"After..." He finally made the connection. "Oh." Despite the very serious situation he was in, he was unable to resist the smirk which sprung up on his face, nor could he stop himself from growling: "Feisty!"

"Freakin' horndog," Andrea groused, but Upchuck spied a small smile on her face, so at least she wasn't put off by it.

XXXX

Upchuck checked his watch for the hundredth time, saw that there was about thirty seconds to go, and looked out the window again in anticipation. Truthfully, he had no idea how Andrea had decided to proposition him, but there was no way in hell he was going to turn it down.

He suddenly wondered if Daria had begun to rot yet. He took several deep breaths, trying to smell for corpse-smell (he had never smelled a rotting body, but figured it had to have a unique odor), but only succeeded in hyperventilating himself, causing him to almost pass out and almost miss Andrea's knock on the window of his car. (His tinted window. Worthy every penny).

He opened the door for her and she slid in. He wondered how they would proceed; Andrea, fortunately, took the initiative by crawling onto his lap and attempting to shove her tongue as far down his throat as she could manage. He reciprocated, and soon he found his hand creeping up underneath her shirt...

Her giggling surprised him. "What's funny?" he asked, making sure he used a playful tone so as not to antagonize her.

"What?" Andrea was clueless.

"You were just giggling. Are you ticklish?" He began to tap his fingers up and down her sides, but elicited no reaction.

"I wasn't giggling," Andrea confirmed.

"Oh...I guess I was just hearing things, heh heh." Their mouths mashed once more, and Andrea's shirt came off, followed soon after by her bra.

And then more giggling.

"Shut up!" Upchuck snapped.

Andrea leaned back from him, staring at him.

"Uh. I wasn't talking to you."

Andrea was silent for a minute, then retrieved her bra and shirt and put them back on. "No offense, but I don't fuck guys who are crazier than me on the first date."

Upchuck nodded dejectedly, then looked back up at her questioningly. "The first date?"

Andrea shrugged. "You're a good kisser," she said. "Did you get an invite to Jodie Landon's party? I was gonna pass it up since my parents weren't gonna give me a ride after work, but if you're going..."

Upchuck took a moment to respond, as his head was swimming with how weird Andrea was acting. He had no idea what she might end up doing next...and, to be honest, it was a little exciting. "Yeah, I was invited to that. I was going to skip it..."

He heard the giggling again and snapped his head to the trunk. Andrea followed his line of sight, a curious eyebrow raised, but she didn't ask any questions.

"I suppose we could go together, if you want to," he finished.

XXXX

Deep within his brain, his rational side was telling him DITCH ANDREA, GET A FUCKING SHOVEL, AND BURY THE CORPSE THAT'S IN YOUR FUCKING TRUNK. However, this part of his mind was inaudible compared to the whole rest of his brain, which was practically singing "I touched some boobs, and I might do it again!" over and over. 


End file.
